OKLAHOMA CITY – Against a depleted, rebuilding Thunder team (22-54), the Hawks (39-37) polished off their road trip with a 136-118 win Wednesday at Paycom Center.
1. This marked Atlanta’s first win in Oklahoma City since Dec. 19, 2016. So, it also marked Trae Young’s first career NBA win in Oklahoma City, playing back in his home state. Young dominated whenever he was on the floor, finishing with a game-high 41 points, plus eight assists, two rebounds and two steals. An Oklahoma native and former Sooner, Young got a round of applause when his name was announced as a starter, and got plenty of cheers throughout the game.
“First win of hopefully many more wins here,” Young said. “There’s definitely a lot of people here that I knew and they’ve seen me play in high school and stuff, so it’s pretty cool to come back here and play for sure. ... It’s different,2. This win puts the Hawks two games over .500, a mark they hadn’t been at since Dec. 2 when they were 12-10. The Hawks have six regular-season games left and are still in a position to gain some ground in the Eastern Conference standings – as of Wednesday night, they’re still at No. 10, but are only a half-game behind the Hornets and one game behind the Nets. They have won three games in a row.
3. In the second quarter, Bogdan Bogdanovic (20 points, three assists, two steals) hit three consecutive 3′s in 57 seconds to put the Hawks up 27, if you want an illustration of how easy it was for Atlanta to build up a massive lead. To be fair, this is a game the Hawks absolutely needed to win, up against the rebuilding Thunder who are missing star and leading scorer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (right ankle soreness), in addition to their second through fifth-leading scorers: Luguentz Dort (left shoulder surgery), Josh Giddey (right hip soreness), Darius Baxley (right knee non-displaced tibial plateau fracture) and Tre Mann (right hamstring strain). The Hawks put up a season-high 85 points in a dominant first half, which ended up making the difference.
4. Pregame, Hawks coach Nate McMillan described this as a “take-care-of-business-game.” The Hawks actually lost the third quarter, 31-30, and let the lead get down to 14 with 2:29 to play in the fourth quarter (which they ultimately lost 29-21), but they had built up such a lead that it ended up not mattering. Understandably, with the Hawks about to face the Cavaliers Thursday on the second night of a back-to-back, plus having to travel back home, Young didn’t play in the fourth quarter. Neither did center Clint Capela (four points, 11 rebounds, one assist).
“You’re not going to play perfect,” McMillan said. “I thought our guys, Clint and Trae, we had a pretty big lead going into that fourth and my thought was to try to keep our starters on the bench and we just ran out of bodies. Our guys were able to withstand it and keep a 15, 20-point lead and finish the ballgame. And I thought that was good.”
5. Rookie Jalen Johnson entered the NBA’s concussion protocol about an hour before tipoff (he took an elbow to the head in the fourth quarter of the Hawks’ win in Indiana Monday, the first win of this road trip), leaving the Hawks super short-handed at forward yet again. Also missing John Collins (right foot strain/right ring finger sprain) and Danilo Gallinari (right elbow contusion), the Hawks started Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (10 points, three assists, three rebounds, one block) and De’Andre Hunter, who had a nice game with 19 points and five rebounds, and also gave almost 18 minutes of playing time to Kevin Knox, who had 13 points in first four minutes off bench and finished with 17 points, two rebounds, one steal and one block.
Stat of the game: 78.9% (or 15-19, what the Hawks shot from the field in the first quarter, their best shooting quarter of the season, to go up 42-24)
Star of the game: Young (utterly dominated whenever he was on the floor, finishing with a game-high 41 points and earning his first NBA win back in his home state of Oklahoma)
Quotable: “I don’t know the last time we swept a road trip; I don’t know if we’ve done that this year. We were talking about it a little bit in the locker room. But it was great to get that, obviously, going back home tomorrow.” (wing Kevin Huerter, who scored 20 points, on the Hawks sweeping their first road trip since November)
